Moving away from reflexively opposing any possible tax increase is still a long way from being to vote for decent tax policies, but it’s still an interesting development. I still wonder about whether Republicans who break from The Pledge in congressional votes will be able to survive capable primary challenges.

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If said Republican can still dole out the defense dollars, I doubt that it will make a difference. (And this is what this is all about: defense patronage vs. tax pledge.) Certainly all that the tax fundamentalists have been able to do as of late is primary viable Republicans out of office in favor of lunatics who can’t get elected.

Y’know, I know Ralph Reed is a crook and all, but watching him take that first tentative step into electoral politics a few years back, when even the voters of Georgia, said ‘fuck no, we do not want this creep as our Lt. Governor,’ was satisfaction enough.

My big question, given the Republicans we have in Congress now, is where are they going to find any capable challengers who have not renounced the pledge. I mean the folks we are talking about have never been sane, reasonable, or moderate in their lives and even they can see the writing on the wall.

This was sort of my line of thought: whatever value the R’s place on The Pledge, there seems to be a growing sentiment among the R’s that they need to reject Norwuist personally, because he is married to a woman of Arab heritage (I forget the details). This means that he, like Zogby, must be rendered an Unperson, however much he shares their policy preferences.

In other words: if they can rebrand The Pledge to drop Norquist, and substitute Reagan or Jeebus or the next Tea Party Darling or whoever, they likely will. Rebellion against Norquists’s Pledge should not be assumed to be meaningful rebellion against the content of The Pledge.

The New York Times reports the following proposal is on the table in negotiations over raising additional tax revenue so that Republicans can say they have not allowed marginal tax rates to rise:

One possible change would tax the entire salary earned by those making more than a certain level — $400,000 or so — at the top rate of 35 percent rather than allowing them to pay lower rates before they reach the target, as is the standard formula. That plan would allow Republicans to say they did not back down in their opposition to raising marginal tax rates and Democrats to say they prevailed by increasing effective tax rates on the rich

You could do this with a trick of math. Just change the percentage of your income exposed to the higher tax rate as your income increases. You could get the same result of marginal rates. It would be absurd of course. I don’t think Grover would consider a scheme like this to pass scrutiny. Only a moron would.

Apart from being dumbshit policy, why would this be OK within the terms of the no-tax cult itself? Not only this but all the trial balloons being floated to allow Republicans to reconcile their delicate consciences to “new revenues” — stuff like reducing deductions that everyone takes or taxing revenues that didn’t used to be taxed.

I’m paying $X taxes in $Y income now. Next year I’m still making $Y but paying $(1.2)*X.

But that’s not a tax hike because the topline rate number hasn’t changed? My nutbar base is going to give me a pass on that lawyerly technicality?

/realizes Republicans only actually care about cutting taxes for rich people; just asking what the theology is here.

Speaking of unlimited campaign cash, can anyone think of a reason why the Supreme Court might find a law that declares all campaign money left over after the campaign pays off its debts should go to the general fund of the candidates’ State coffers as unconstitutional?

You liberals and socalists, yet again, deny the obvious: low taxes spur economic growth. We saw it under Coolidge, Reagan, and most other presidents. But Obama (or Carter 2.0) wants to increase them dramatically to levels even his own party rejects.

Here’s where this gets particularly moronic. Sure, cutting taxes does, broadly speaking, lead to economic growth. But somehow conservatives and Republicans will ALSO bellyache about deficits, saying that spending has to be cut too. Well, cutting services and government assistance… diminishes economic growth. Just use a modicum of consistency in arguing your dopey points.

This is not the right tact, since boilerplate Keynesianism tells us that lowering taxes is stimulative and raising them is a legit counter-inflationary tool.

It’s just that tax cuts for the rich have a low multipliers, whereas an increase in foods stamps for example has a high one. And while tax cuts are stimulative, they don’t pay for themselves. You have to pay the cut back…ie raise taxes/cut spending once you’re close to full-employment.

There’s not point mocking Republicans for the parts of the Keynesian consensus they get right.

Ah yes, the 1920s. There was a decade where conservative economic policy had no negative consequences whatsoever. The forever boom they called it. Unicorns and rainbows everywhere. That Calvin Coolidge sure was an American legend!

I don’t know how coordinated it is, but Grover Defiance, should it grow beyond Chambliss, et al, could become a major combined GOP/Villager pincer movement against Obama and the Democrats in any upcoming Grand Bargain talks. “See”, the GOP will say, “we’re willing to kinda sorta break the (completely non-binding and legally unenforceable) ‘pledge’ we’ve been making to a private citizen for the past 25 years by offering to partially close certain tax loopholes that favor the super-rich (and which, ahem, we will reopen the second we get a chance), and maybe but not really raise the top income tax rate by making it effective rather than marginal! Now in return you must give us the Ryan Plan for SocialSecurityMedicareMedicaid!”

Andrea Mitchell, Fred Hiatt, David Gergen, and Tom Brokaw will gravely pronounce the Democratic goose officially cooked by this irresistible logic, and as a resilt massive media pressure will mount on Obama, Reid, and Comrade Pelosi to eat this delicious shit sandwich. High five!

I think Digby’s saying exactly what I and lots of others believe, namely that the GOP will happily pocket “breaking” their blood oath to Grover (however temporarily and meaninglessly said “breaking” actually is) and in return use the Villager brownie points culled from this extraordinarily unprecedented and monumental act of political bravery to exert maximum pressure on Obama and the Democrats to eviscerate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

My sense is that Chambliss or the few other GOP “Gang of Six” types in both Houses will play good cop, show a willingness to close certain tax loopholes and credits (or offer to simply raise effective rates as opposed to marginal rates), and in so doing will claim good faith negotiating and demand major cuts to SS, Medicare, and Medicaid in return. Since Obama and others have foolishly made higher “revenues” their red line, they will probably be only too willing to play ball.

That’s the deliberate legerdemain of the so-called Grand Bargain. It goes something like this: now that we’ve agreed that reducing the deficit requires a mix of revenue increases and spending cuts, the best way to handle the spending cuts side is to eviscerate “entitlements,” i.e. benefits.

Now, there’s really no good reason why spending cuts have to be aimed squarely at benefits, as opposed to technocratic fixes on the provider side (for health care programs) or raising the income cap for Social Security.

(All of which presumes that deficit reduction should be an immediate concern, which I doubt, but resisting that pull is not politically feasible these days.)

That’s the step the pundit-political complex are quite eager to browbeat us all into accepting: that the only real, brave Grand Bargain is between “tax increases” and benefit cuts. Don’t fall for it.

IMHO there are smarter ways to bring in revenue and to reduce wasteful expenditures. There’s a great primer in this Washington Monthly article from 2011: 20,000 Leagues Under the State.

I really think people overstate the powers of the “media centrists” of the world. Politicians will do what they have the votes to do. When you have the support of the Andrea Mitchells of the world, you are likely to also have the support of the pivotal votes in Congress. But that’s not necessarily because Andrea Mitchell actually has any influence, it just means they tend to occupy the same position on the political spectrum.

I’m willing to suppose that “media pressure” can theoretically make a difference, but a lot of is just an epiphenomenon.

It means the Andrea Mitchell and everyone else like her decides what to say on TV after they have been told what to say by aides to the Republican leadership or, in some cases, the Republican leadership themselves.